Thanks for the reply. This thread does answer my questions. A bit of a shame as i like itunes, having only glanced at WMP, and having nothing against Apple. However a Zen is probably the way forward as a replacement ipod is expensive, I don't have 80 gb of music and reviews of the new ipod classic are not great.

The nice thing about the Zen is that, unlike iPod, you're not locked into a specific software suite to manage your player. You can use WMP11 (my personal preference), Winamp, Mediamonkey, MusicMatch Jukebox, MediaSource, or even simply direct drag-and-drop through Windows Explorer. On the Linux side, you can use Amarok (KDE), and possibly even Exaile (Gnome), though I haven't tried this yet.

Enjoy your Zen!

Edit: I just synced a few albums onto my ZVM with Exaile, and it worked beautifully! I don't see why it wouldn't work with the Zen as well. Just a heads-up to all you fellow Penguins out there.

The problem I'm having is with iTunes audibooks. They show as single files in the OS but iTunes shows the chapters and I assume an iPod also uses the chapters. If I were to "accidently" remove the Fairplay drm from those m4b (AAC?) files would the Zen (sleek photo) see the chapters or would I have to convert the books into mp3s and cut them manually?

Not only is this the wrong Forum and thread, the ZSP does not support the playback of AAC files. You will have to remove the DRM and convert them to an audio format the ZSP supports, like MP3 (separated by chapter).

__________________.~Light travels faster than sound, which is why some people appear to be bright until they speak~

I love my Creative Zen mp3 player but would like help from you experts. I want to download my PLAYLISTS from iTunes. Is there a way to do this? I know I can load individual songs and albums from iTunes by using the ZEN media program but not playlists. I tried to use a third party program called "iTunes agent" but it requires that my Zen be assigned a drive # by windows, something that creative apparently does not allow. Does any one know of a program that can help me out or how to assign a drive # ?Thanks, Steve

Dont know if this is in the right section, but i just bought my zen 32g which as you can tell im very happy about but i'm not quite sure how you transfer my songs that i have from itunes to it, meaning i have files that are M4B files, there wasnt anything that came with my player that tells me if this file is compatible as i think the aac ones are, so will i need to burn this file before i can put it on my player? i was hoping i could keep my podcast file intact but if i need to split it i am happy to do that. if anyone can help please do